Neolide

The initial screen looks quite nice.
Yeh, i have noticed the lack of combine textures, prolly because the combine are to busy wrecking other people textures with thre gian walking citadels to make their own

Looks cool. Gives me a sort of Haloish feeling in a way, but a good way at that.

Was thinking the same thing actually - probably down to the use of general purpose textures and sort of emptiness of it. I think those spotlights should have more defined light coming out of them, as there doesn't appear to be much of effect from them on the ground despite their obvious power. Nice start though, will be interesting to see how it develops

DOOD!!!!!

I LOVE THE TRIANGLE DOOR MAN!!!!!!!

does it have triangle slidy doors to go with the doorway?

It looks pretty cool already, but I'm rather curious about what physics objects you'll have in there to throw around. It didn't seem to me that there was much Combine stuff you could toss without the super grav gun... unless you have some sort of fiendish/foolish plan to not allow use of the gravity gun at all...

You would throw the yellow glowy things of course! They have the added bonus of requiring some skill to hit someone with.

Lol, or you could opt for the funnnier way, and throw the people.

Looks pretty, rock ceiling is a bit HL1-ish tho', maybe stick in a few stalactites(?), section of rock dropped out of the ceiling etc. to make it more interesting. Its almost tempted me to start mapping for HL2

No one likes being forced to stay in the center of a doorway, in a DM frag it could get you killed bumping into a door facing. redesign the triangle doors so they are not so narrow.

otherwise, i love the atmosphere, it fairly drips off the monitor.

They have cunning clipping going on to stop people getting stuck, don't worry. And in the screens the rock does look a bit crap, I will sort that out, but in game you can see the dismaps better

And yeah, there is a problem with throwable physics objects, but I've got around that by using some Combine robotic enemies (e.g. scanners, roller mines and land mines). I'm not sure how much damage the energy balls would cause in DM, and if you can manipulate them with a normal grav gun, but I'll also look into that one if I can figure it out...

The rocks look plain and boring. Displacorize them! And yer if you could use those energy balls that appear all the time in the generators that would be cool- like Men In Black with that little ball thing!
You should do something with spinkee cameras all over the place, maybe even a typical "death room". The kinda room that has a spinkee weapon in it, but make it so that in a control room you can lock the doors and activate loads of gun turrets in the room

Very nice, the atmosphere is nice

The energy balls are identical to the ones fired by the Overwatch Rifle I believe, so if you had them in the map it would be nuts and a little beyond unbalancing if you know what I mean!

Looks great! The overall theme and the cold lighting remind me of AVP2 (an excellent game, BTW).

This is my possible competition map, depending on time limits, critiques given below and of course if getting feedback like this is allowed :wink: If anyone wants to test this please drop me a PM and I'll send you a link. Thanks!

Mainly after visual looks (especially how it fares FPS wise on people's computer) and general atmosphere; there's still some things to be built so a few dead ends, unlit and empty rooms, etc...

The man himself, mapping?

In any case, the only suggestion I can give offhand is get a darker rock texture/make the trim between metal and rock more stark, as the lack of contrast between the two isn't so nice looking, especially in the first picture.

rubs hands together

let the games begin :biggrin:

We're quite limited rock texture-wise, unfortunately :sad: Though the 1st pic has had a few changes such as more contrast since taking it, I'll update it. Oh, and ignore the FPS indicator in the 2nd pic, not so bad any more :wink:

Wow, looking good. Almost finished a map myself, which has run into a
few problems, train wise. But hey check my post for more on that! Is it
HLDM or Singleplayer? HL2 really needs more quality Singleplayer stuff.
But hey, great work!

Definitely need darker rocks. Try to get more colors of light. I have gone so far as to put an orange light and a green next to eachother. It looked GOOD! just gotta use the right blends and such, but i tihnk this map needs a green and blue and a purple light scheme. Please try this for me. make all your main lights be teh color they are now, but put some light_spots on the floor of the other colors i mentioned and just randomly place them, let them shine DIMLY on the floor. see my "frankenstien" map in the courtyard next to the pond there is an assortment of light colrs and it looks good.

I had my doubts about an underground Combine theme, but this is looking great! Find some way to put the dropship in screenshot 2, you have to!

EDIT: Ohhhh yes. That second shot is now officially "PWN." That 25 FPS at the top scares me though. I hope that's just because of a "fast VIS" or something.

Obligatory Warning: This critique is given freely with no further thanks required, with the understanding that if it doesn't fit your vision of how the map should be, you can ignore any advice given, as long as you keep any angry retorts to yourself.
OK, the first thing that dawned upon me when I first contemplated doing critiques for HL2 was the realization that machines are not all created equally. My machine may not display the maps in a satisfactory way to depict how the author designed it to look because my hardware is inferior to give the desired results. For this i humbly apologize in advance, and will be happy to post my machine specs and settings so everyone will know that if it looks like crap, it is more than likely my machines fault and not the author.
Machine Specs. Celeron 2.6GHZ, 512 megs PC133 ram, 64 meg Radeon 9000 card with the latest drivers.
Settings are set as follows.


I would like to say up front that it was a real chore just trying to get any screenshots to comment on. For the most part, the map had few if any real issues to gripe about. The map is obviously incomplete and I am asking in advance to do a critique when it is nearer to completion, without the constant need to noclip from place to place. I would like to see the map with the finishing touches so to speak. My only real complaint was that the map did not feel like an HLDM map. This may be by design, so its entirely opinion and by no means retracts from the map in any way. I did find a few screenshots of what i would alter, but this is entirely up to the author. So without further delay:

Doorways, nearly all of them were a bit narrow for my taste. I was constantly bumping into them, and I was only looking, not running from or toward anyone.

I spawned here, I never did figure out how to get over there without noclip. Obviously this was because of either the unfinished nature of the map, or my ineptitude to solve basic riddles.

Floor texture looked out of place when one looked at it with the wall in the same frame. I also never did figure out how to disable the force field, but it later was off when i returned to this location :/

This texture not only hurt to look at, but also seemed to me to be an alignment nightmare. I also felt it was seriously over used, but it did fit the theme. I think if used in moderation it would be OK, but not as a tunnel/hall ceiling

This effect, I cannot even begin to describe how it effected my vertigo issue. I actually had to get up and leave for a minute to swallow the last of my lunch before it made an abrupt appearance. It was very cool really, i think it would have looked better in a bigger frame. To bad I cannot view things like this very long.

One of those narrow doorways I mentioned. there was some excess wall space to utilize for the increase its width. Also, the halls tended to have far less detail than the open areas. It seemed like they were left for last or were less important to the maps overall looks. the ceilings tended to be flat and plain, although some/most had some sort of a gizmo on at least one wall. This was a nice touch.

This hall of mirrors effect nearly did it for me. I know it was temporary, but it was also unexpected when I first encountered it.

Bottomline, ugly light.

Another hall that clearly illustrates my "plain" comment earlier. Again the texture on the floor looked wrong too.

Very nice beginning of a room, oddly empty in spite of its accoutrement's. Maybe it was the flatness of the ceiling and floor, but whatever it was, the room needs help.

One of my favorite areas. Plenty of vertical in this map for sure. I hope that connectivity doesn't hamper it however, since sometimes elevated spots get out of the loop when the author adheres to strongly to the theme. For instance, if a player had to navigate to far to get to a perch such as this, they might avoid it in favor of kill totals in a more convenient locale.

Perhaps it was my low settings, but this angled shot looked wrong. the green stuff down below was oddly incomplete looking.

up wasn't much better.

That was a gizmo, I accidentally smashed it so I think I ruined its desired objective :sad:

Very sweet area. Those thumper things were a little distracting, Always shaking the floor and stuff. Otherwise, it was prime.

Very long sight lines. No noticeable slowdowns on my pathetic machine either.

Lots of water I assume moisture as well, but no plant growth on the walls or ceiling. many under water, but strangely dead above the surface.

I think some lights under the surface would greatly enhance the effects of the water. i couldn't even tell it was water till i turned on my flashlight the first time.
All in all, it was nice to see my first real user made HL2 map,That is to say, one that wasn't over rated prior to my viewing it :biggrin:
I hope to get to see this at least once more before its release.
Two thumbs up so far Lep. Nice job.

I had a run about the map, I agree what with Orph has to say. The fact that there are about ten Combine textures total (at a generous estimate) is going to limit this map. I'm not sure if I would reccomend a change, though, just more snazzy architecture than pillars lining the walls that scream 'oh, I see this room is empty, how about I put a brush or two in here.' Also, your displacement maps seem quite jagged in places.

This looks like something I'd like to run around and kill people
in. The combine textures are pretty hard to work with, I tried
and just gave up and switched to the human theme. Good luck.

W00t, thanks for the critique :smile: First and foremost, like I said the layout hasn't been completed yet and I didn't expect you to really get anywhere (quickly, or at all!) without noclip. Also there were 'HOM' effects as some areas were still cordoned off.

As far as I'm aware, doorways are as wide as Valve's, but I'll stick in some more clip brushes to help you get around. And I'll go about sorting out some of those ugly lights and corridors post haste.

The force field which you said you couldn't work out uses that 'gizmo' to power it, as seen in the latter parts of the single player game. I'm sure once someone fries you with one of the energy balls or you get stuck on the RPG ledge you'll figure it out :wink:

Those damn plants growing on the ground, I can't get rid of them as they automatically appear with that ground texture! I'll do something with the water though, someone else said they couldn't really see it.

Did you see the dropship landing at all?

And Cassius, where in particular did you think the rocks looked a bit jagged, around the water or just everywhere?

Anyway, thanks a lot for the critique, lots of good feedback to work on :smile: I guess the texture limit will bother some people, but hey, I've used more than Valve did in most of their later single player levels and am personally happy with it!

Well I've been round the map and such quite a few times (not this version though, I'll have to be sent it as HL2 looks crappy and shiney on nVidia cards) The rock texture seemed fine to me, maybe its the screenshots that don't enhance it, you know how it is- taking pictures of dark levels is always very hard but ingame its fine because your in the environment.

The only thing I think it needs are those minute details that seem to be scattered throughout the whole of HL2. Things like mini grates with wires behind them and stuff. Also I think maybe the use of more combine props is in order... I noticed a lack of iddy biddy props when I played the map ages ago, not sure if thats changed.

i clipped around everywhere, i think i saw the entire map. i hope i did. but in all fairness, if i reached an area that had no new complaints, i didn't take any screenshots of it. i can go back and get more if you like though???

as i said, my goal wasn't to gripe, far from it really. this being my first for 2005 it was kinda hard because i began to realize, "is my machine doing that?" i saw funny blob reflections in some of the surfaces, but none of the screenshots showed them so i ignored them as inconsequential.

as for the plant, i wanted more, not less :biggrin: sorry if i sounded to the contrary.

be good

Might have to be nice and request an Orphorized seal of approval on my map soon :eek:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Myrk-</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Might have to be nice and request an Orphorized seal of approval on my map soon :eek: </DIV></DIV>

blushes

stop, you're embarrassing me.
slips myrk a fiver

i like the atmosphere that seeps out of this. nice architecture and
lighting in most places, though could be better here and there (like
that hallway orph mentioned). from the 3 included pics the only comment
atm is that the 2 rectangular windows in the 2nd pic could be
made more interesting maybe.

but overall very nice, i'd say go for it

Well, Lep, not necessarily jagged, but not smooth enough/extruded into interesting enough shapes.

I like the feel of it, looks really good in most parts. Orph's pics did show some pretty plain areas that could be detailed out alot more.

We're a lonely group trying to do combine themes :razz: hardly no textures and props the size of three story buildings don't make it easy.

I don't care for that floor texture, the multi colored one, but that personal taste.

The combine forcefield... the support brackets are floating in the air... you should extend that wall so they are flush to it.

without running around in it thats all i can say for my 2cents. can't wait to see the final. GJ

I like and Orph is right about your map also it has a batcave feel to it. (i used to be a fan of batman)

I had a run through and it looks pretty good so far. I got a stalkyard vibe from it, which is a good thing. The fast speed, flow, tons of overlooks, and the way the map seems to double back on itself will make for great games. The completed areas looked rather nice as well. Additional stuff:

-I would be careful about that generator that spits out energy balls. It spits out balls too fast and too often, and any jerkoff can just sit there firing a constant stream of them all over the place. If they are efficient enough they could even lag the server. It will certainly make moving through that area difficult because you always have to be wary of a stray disintegration.

-The hallways looked terrible. Obviously the map is still under construction and those areas will probably be the last to be touched, but they really need more detail. Perhaps you could use the shield texture as a sort of overhead window and show some rockwork above them.

-I can get rather low FPS for many of the big rooms due to high swap buffers. This is probably because my graphics card doesn't like the combine refracting windows or maybe just because of the fog. Personally I'd ditch the fog (if its the cause) and use the gained framerates to add more brush detail to the rooms.

-Throw some of those plastic tubes into some areas to add some variety. You could have a room with a big open rock area and have tubes snaking up into the distance, like it's sending stuff to a combine facility above.

-I just today made two prefabs that you might be interested in. They are meant for combine control rooms in normal buildings, but you could probably find a use for them. First is a gun rack from the game and the second is based on what I think were supposed to be manhack storage/dispenser units that were in one of the buildings in Water Hazard. They aren't completely release-worthy yet as they need more testing, but if you want them I can give you a download link.





All in all this looks like the beginnings of a great map.

Now this is why I hired you. Hit me with those prefabs baby! :biggrin:

Thanks for the feedback, and don't worry, the corridors are certainly being worked on and more detail being added. The swapbuffers I believe are actually being caused by the rocks- apparently they've been compiled with that $lightmappedgeneric or whatever teh ev1l is- and I need the fog for the cavern effect, the same thing means the rocks won't ever look fully dark :/

Thats a bit poo

i've just got a question to ask. once you finished compiling the level, (say your final version) how you get it to ppl? imean, i've never really finished a map so i don't know how or what to do except the finished thing is usually zipped up so a hosted site can let ppl download it....is there anything u do before you zip it up?

New beta version available for download:

http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/leperous/neolide_beta.zip

Obvious still much to be done (including sorting out the swapbuffers, which seem to have got worse in one room despite having done nothing to it.. hmm) and many bugs (e.g. lift), but this is more for people to look around than critique on- unfortunately I'm a weekend behind being able to submit it to the competition :sad:

When you finish yopur map, just place the .bsp file and a readme file too if you want into a zip file for people to upload it. I'd recommend the readme file be included. Just get some webspace and use this site to post your link.

One thing I just thought of... why are there no chunks of loose rock? They would make good physics items to chuck around...

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

Here we go!



I fell down here after surveying those shiny pipes. They look a little
too bright against the dark walls. I screenshotted to illustrate the
fact I got down here, and didn't die. I assume it will be fixed :smile:



This charger gave out suit power like it were going out of fashion,
perhaps a little too much - I presume the room is this way to sacrifice
safety for the charger. Just an opinion though. The amount of wires
looks a little odd, perhaps have some conduit casing them in.



Texture flickering issues up here in this "thingy". Not noticeable too much, but I caught it out of the corner of my eye.



Yeah, it's combine architecture but I feel areas like this could do
with a little snazzing up - mainly in the form of subtle lighting.



I think this door needs a frame - the established lines in the
architecture look a little off to me. Either that or snazz up all these
doors with lights/switches next to them. In the darker areas I flitted
past them without noticing on occasion!



These screens are cool, but this one looks odd - the white noise
doesn't move, and it looks strange. Note also the shiny pipes. They
need a connection point, and their lighting issues addressed.



This is nice :smile: More subtle lighting like this in the rafters, and highlighting doorways is needed in other places.



Not as noticeable as I would have liked for this picture, but the water
has some weird problems with flickering at the edges. Of all the maps
i've seen so far, water is the stumbling block for most people.. so I
dunno what to suggest.



These things are cool - non barrel/debris physics objects = good! BUT!
When passing by, the default placement makes it difficult to navigate
the corridor smoothly. Yes, I have grav gun but in the heat of battle
trying to escape, it'd tick me off :razz:



Shower me in love, this area said to me. Well, maybe not. Yeah, it's combine like I said before - but a little bland?



Weird reflection/cubemap issues in a few places, but I think you mentioned this already so :smile:



I'm a collosal retard. yes. How do I get the rocket launcher? I turned
round to go find a solution but ran into that thing made of those weird
white ball things, and promptly died. Woops.



There seemed to be no other obvious way out of the water (this area
looked extremely spinky BTW :smile: ), or rather quick way bar the ladder.
Considering it's so large, i'd at least add a small set of steps
somewhere. Unless I missed another way of course, in which case refer
to my comment on the last shot :razz:





Urgh. Can you not get rid of this tex altogether? :razz: It seems to
reflect a non existent sky, in a terrible colour. I don't think
cubemapping fiddling will address the issue :sad:



Another place I shouldnt be able to get to?

Ah, merci for those. A lot are issues that have already been fixed (especially those great bit grey metal blocks sticking into one of the arenas?! Along with the weapon) Good suggestion with more lights around the doorway, but everything else is being spruced up slowly :smile:

The rocket launcher is actually a trap of sorts- if you've played the single player game, you'll recall you had to use the grav gun on the generators to disable some of the force fields! Same case here, but obviously there are ball respawners nearby so it's possible to get trapped outside (well, you can jump to the middle...)

And no-one seems to have noticed the dropship yet. I'll have to do something with that...

Those are both terrible ideas.

Any word on this map? You need a second critique?

/me wants to see it finished.

[edit] /me edits my critique, the image links pointed to the old site.